‘Cleopatra’ Writer David Scarpa Teases His Political Thriller and Female-Centric Take on the Story

Hollywood has actually been attempting to make a brand-new Cleopatra film for several years. Angelina Jolie has actually notoriously been connected for a long while, courting David Fincher to possibly direct a brand-new take on the reign of the Ptolemaic Kingdom ruler. Eric Roth( Forrest Gump) worked for a long while on the script, however absolutely nothing ever concerned fulfillment. Now, nevertheless, it appears as however Cleopatra might lastly have new members, as Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve remains in speak with direct Cleopatra with a fresh brand-new take.

That brand-new take comes thanks to film writer David Scarpa, with whom Collider’s own Steve Weintraub just recently spoke at journalism day for the Ridley Scott thriller All the cash on the planet Throughout the course of their discussion, Scarpa tease his political thriller handle Cleopatra:

” Everybody I believe who had actually ever attempted to do Cleopatra prior had actually done it as this prestige-y image, which resembles 3 hours long and individuals speaking in English fans and accents blowing and huge sets and all that. Important and really shiny and dull, and my mindset was well let’s take that eminence image and simply blow it up. I actually got into exactly what that world resembled at the time, which was grungy and filthy. I was available in and stated, ‘Let’ s do this as Costa-Gavras‘ Z Let’s do it as a political thriller.’ A great deal of Cleopatra’s life focused on the fall of the Roman republic, which focused on the assassination of Caesar and the consequences of that and how the whole world type of broke down and returned together once again. And she was actually main to that.”

Image through Little, Brown & Co.

But Scarpa struck upon another intriguing concept: acknowledging that history was composed by males, and therefore exactly what we understand about Cleopatra’s reign is manipulated:

“So the idea is we’re not making the big bloated 3-hour movie, we’re making the tight, dirty, fast 2-hour movie, that was very sort of visceral. And also what was really interesting was there have been so many narratives of Cleopatra that have all been framed through the eyes of men. The entire history of that period is framed through the eyes of men, specifically Roman men. And the idea was we’re gonna approach it through her point of view. We’re going to assume that the narratives that have been created by the Roman writers of the time were slanted, and we’re going to unskew them. So it gave us an opportunity to approach history in a radical way as well.”

That’s a intriguing and wise take on this historic figure, though one envisions it might be very important to obtain a female voice in the crafting of this brand-new movie someplace. While Scarpa has actually composed this take, it’s really early days and he confesses he hasn’t spoken much about it with Villeneuve, who’s been hectic with Blade Runner 2049:

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” Basically Denis Villeneuve has actually revealed an interest in directing the film. I have not yapped to him– he was off doing Blade Runner and press for Blade Runner— so I have truthfully hardly any understanding into exactly what his perspective on the film is, and I’m sure he’s got one. I’m interested to see exactly what occurs.”